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Rahul Gandhi Calls Deletion Of 727 Delhi Voters 'Vote Theft'

13 hours ago

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Rahul Gandhi accused the Election Commission of deleting 727 names from Delhi's Bela Estate rolls. The poll body says it acted after demolitions and extended claim dates.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi has accused the Election Commission of deleting more than 700 names from the electoral rolls of Bela Estate in Delhi, describing the move as another instance of what he calls vote theft. In posts on X on September 28, 2026, Gandhi said Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar "will go," but added that the "system that made him do this will also have to answer."

According to Gandhi, 728 people live at Bela Estate along the bank of the Yamuna. After the Special Intensive Revision (SIR), he said, only one name remained on the voter list and the other 727 were struck off. He said the residents had lived there for decades and had cast ballots in the 2024 Lok Sabha election and the 2025 Delhi election, and that their homes were demolished in 2023 but they had not moved away.

"CEC Gyanesh Kumar himself has said that 'House Number 0' is for the homeless. Yet, 727 people's names have been struck off. This isn't SIR - this is a method of vote theft. From those who already have the least, their only power is being snatched away," Gandhi wrote. He argued that owning a house or not has no bearing on a person's right to vote.

What the Election Commission said

The Election Commission responded that the matter had already been addressed by the concerned Electoral Registration Officer, including on an earlier occasion. It said the period for filing claims and objections in the National Capital Territory of Delhi had been extended until October 30, 2026. In a post from the office of the Chief Electoral Officer, Delhi, the Commission said any eligible elector who finds his or her name missing from the draft roll can apply for inclusion by filling Form-6. It also reiterated its commitment to transparent and inclusive polling.

The Commission traced the deletions to the demolition of the houses the voters had earlier lived in, which it dated to 2022-23. It said the "physical and residential status of the area has undergone extensive changes" since then.

In a statement issued earlier, the Commission set out the procedure its field staff followed. Under the SIR instructions, the Booth Level Officer was required to make house-to-house visits to hand Enumeration Forms to electors at their registered addresses. Because the dwelling units had been demolished, the Commission said, the electors were no longer living at those registered addresses. It said their status as "Ordinary resident" under section 20(7) of the Representation of the People Act 1970, read with the instruction manual for electoral registration, had therefore changed. On that basis, it said, the Booth Level Officer had "correctly placed these electors in the ASDD list."

Gandhi's push against the CEC

The Bela Estate dispute is the latest flashpoint in a longer campaign by Gandhi, the Leader of the Opposition, for the removal of the Chief Election Commissioner. He has pressed that demand since The Indian Express reported that the two other election commissioners had disagreed with Gyanesh Kumar on multiple occasions over the revision of voter lists and the inclusion of new voters.

Gandhi has seized on the exclusion of the Bela Estate voters to renew that argument. His framing sets the residents' long presence at the site and their recent voting record against the Commission's position that the demolition of their homes removed the basis for keeping them on the rolls at those addresses.

The extended window for claims and objections, running to October 30, 2026, and the Form-6 route the Commission has pointed to now stand as the official remedy for anyone at Bela Estate who wants to be restored to the list. Whether the 727 affected residents use that process, and how the dispute over their status is ultimately resolved, remains to be seen.

Rahul Gandhi, Bela Estate voters, Election Commission of India, Gyanesh Kumar, Delhi electoral rolls, SIR voter revision, vote theft, Form-6

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